Why Did Hotel Security Knock on My Door at 4:39 in the Morning?

After being involved with ZorkFest 2018 for the entire day — and it was a long day — I retired for the night in my hotel room at approximately 11:30 in the evening; and I was mostly packed for my flight back to Atlanta.

Why Did Hotel Security Knock on My Door at 4:39 in the Morning?

In bed and unconscious to the world — or so I thought — I heard a rapid succession of knocks which were faint enough for me to think that either I was dreaming it; or that they were for a different room.

I looked at the clock next to the bed. 4:39. Who is knocking at 4:39 in the morning — and why?

After a moment, another succession of knocks followed — and then another succession subsequent to that.

I reluctantly trudged from under the covers towards the door to the hotel room and peered out through the peephole to see what was going on. There was a woman outside who appeared to be wearing some sort of hotel uniform.

Somehow, I managed to grunt out a “Yes?”

“Hotel security,” said the woman. “You missed your wake-up call. We are just checking up on you to see if everything is okay.”

“Wake-up call?!?” I asked through the door, never opening it.

“Yes. You missed your wake-up call; so we are checking to see if everything is okay.”

Annoyed, I grumbled to her through the door that I never asked the front desk for a wake-up call.

“Okay, sir,” she said; and then disappeared down the hallway.

Summary

The door in the photograph at the top of this article is indeed the door in question — but I have never heard or experienced anything like this. Was it a practical joke by someone? Was this an attempt to get me to unlock and open the door to the hotel room so that access can be gained for whatever reason? Are members of the security staff actually dispatched to the hotel rooms of people who have not responded to a wake-up call — and if that was the case, why would they send someone to the room instead of calling me via the telephone in my room first?

I will chalk this up to an honest mistake on the part of members of the staff of the hotel property; and no, I did not ask for compensation — but has a similar experience ever happened to you? Have you even heard of something like this? Please respond using the Comments section below.

I would write in and ask them about it. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for the guests who stay at this property after you. So it won’t happen to them. Be a good citizen and look out for others.

…but as this had never happened to me, I wanted to know if anyone else experienced this and if the typical security protocol at other hotel properties is similar. Apparently, some readers of The Gate think nothing of it; while others would be quite uncomfortable if it happened to them. While that information does not definitively answer what I was seeking, it is not “fake news.”

Now, I would absolutely agree with you if this article was simply a cut-and-paste reiteration of another article about a different person who experienced something similar. I do not know if you noticed; but I quit doing those types of articles for the most part some time ago — despite how popular they were, believe it or not…

Your columns are always full of interesting observations and your personal experiences about travel! Thank you for writing about all of it….what one person sees as the non-event of the year, another person sees as one of the interesting curiosities of life and travel